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Harapaki Wind Farm

A 41-turbine wind farm near Napier, Harapaki is capable of generating 176 megawatts of renewable energy. That’s enough to power more than 70,000 average New Zealand homes.

Harapaki is New Zealand’s second-largest wind farm, boosting the country’s ability to tackle climate change and accelerate the electrification of homes, businesses and the wider economy.

The site is located within the Maungaharuru Range in Hawke’s Bay, approximately 35 kilometres northwest of Napier. Since it's completion in July 2024, it has been making a significant contribution to our wind generation portfolio.

Construction

It took an incredible team to construct Harapaki given the many challenges faced throughout the three-year construction period. They dealt with multiple weather events, including three cyclones, plus the effects of Covid-19 and global supply chain delays. Despite this, the project was delivered within one month of the original completion date and within the forecast $448m budget.

Industry leading sustainability

Harapaki marked several industry and company firsts, particularly in sustainability. We used innovative strategies and processes to reduce waste and maintain low carbon emissions. A novel foundation design required less concrete, coupled with an on-site concrete plant, that significantly decreased transportation needs from Napier.

An impressive 75% of construction materials were diverted from landfill, by being reused on-site or within the local community. Reusable materials, such as wooden pallets, tarpaulins, old fencing, and drainage pipes, were redistributed. This commitment to reusing materials extends to our existing wind farms, where all materials reaching the end of their life cycle are either recycled or stored until a sustainable solution is available.

Prioritising local

One of our key objectives for the project was to prioritise local labour, goods, and services. Over 2,400 people worked on the project and we’re proud to have maintained an average of 50% locally employed staff, peaking at 57% during civil works.

Empowering communities in our backyard

Our Power Up community fund supports local projects in areas in which we have generation assets. It’s one of the ways in which we recognise the importance of local communities to our operations.

If you’re based near a Meridian power station or wind farm and have a project you’d like help with, apply now!

Power Up community fund

See more of our team in action.

Enquiries

For general enquiries contact: harapaki@meridian.co.nz 

For media enquiries contact: mediateam@meridian.co.nz 

Our other wind farms

It gets pretty blustery in New Zealand – which is good news for us wind farmers. We have six wind farms spread from Waikato to Southland, plus the iconic, solitary wind turbine in Brooklyn, Wellington. We’ve also designed and built a wind farm at Ross Island in Antarctica that provides power to Scott Base and McMurdo research stations.

Our wind farms

Education Resources

We reckon that by teaching Kiwi kids how we make clean energy, they’ll continue the mahi to keep Papatūānuku in good shape for our future. That’s why we’ve come up with some downloadable education resources that are aligned with the New Zealand school curriculum and have been designed and reviewed by New Zealand teachers.

Learn more